Era of Dreams
by Willowsandbees
Summary: (no pairings)Now has a CHAPTER 2: Shanks is relaxing on his ship when he sees an interesting newspaper... / Shanks had encountered many from the new generation, yet they had always disappointed him. However, when the captain comes across a small village in the East Blue, that might change... CHAPTER 2(Shanks and Luffy first meet, slightly ooc)
1. Meet

"You want to be a pirate? Why?" The red-haired man crossed his arm and turned towards a boy with dirty blonde hair, of about 12 years old.

Shanks had been observing the new era from a distance, yet he hadn't found what he was looking for in its young. So every time he heard such dreams his curiosity would be peaked, hoping they wouldn't say something like what uttered from yet another young one's mouth-

"Pirates get tons of treasure, and if you're a captain, you get to be the big boss and everyone obeys you!" The boy smirked, and Shanks turned and kept walking.

It was the same thing, over and over. He had enough of this "Great Pirate Era." His hand found its way to the straw hat resting on his head.

_Is this really the age of dreams you were hoping to create…Captain?_

"PIRATES!" The screams of a fisherman echoed across the town. The man had been working on repairing his small fishing boat, and now he found himself face-to-face with none other than that ship's captain.

The fisherman shook in fear and scrambled away in shock.

"Oi, oi. Don't get so worked up! We're not here to hurt you!" The captain raised his palms in and attempted to show the man that he had no weapons on him to prove his point.

It was as if the man had not heard him whatsoever, as he continued to cover his face with his arms.

Shanks sighed and turned towards his vice-captain when the man spoke. "See what I mean, Captain? We're in East Blue; it being Garp's hometown, if anything, makes them LESS accustomed to pirates…"

"I'm sure you'd prefer it if Garp were here, you haven't had a good battle in a while, Captain! You're gonna get rusty!" One of Shanks' crew members teased from the ship behind him.

"If you're looking for adventure, we probably should look outside the East Blue!" Another called down from the dock.

"Ah… I suppose you're right. This town is just a bit too meek for my tastes." Shanks pouted.

"T-that's right, nothing but peace here in Fuusha, no treasure or anything, a real boring town, really!" The fisherman trembled from behind a crate. Shanks turned towards him and started walking towards him.

"Do you at least have a ba-"He bent over suddenly as a relatively big rock flew right where his head had been moments before.

Shanks turned, his haki slightly ablaze as he looked towards the thrower. "Now what's the big idea-" He stopped short, his eyes going down further… and further… until finally, he met the eyes of a wide-eyed raven-haired boy that only came up to just above his knees.

"Stay away from Mr. Fisherman, you dumb ape!" The boy pulled on his lower eyelid and stuck his tongue out in a very- well, childish way. Shanks looked at the boy with very little curiosity, and decided to have fun with him. He pulled his hat down over his eyes, and drew his sword part of the way out of the sheath.

"Kid… you shouldn't go around throwing rocks at people," His crew caught on and made their most intimidating faces. "Especially…if they're pirates!" Shanks gave the boy a scary grin, hoping to get a good laugh about the kid running like his life depended on it- though, if they had been any other pirates, it would- only to see that the boy's eyes had widened but he made no movement to run.

The boy's eyes widened further, and his fists raised up towards his face in what seemed like, yes, that was…excitement. His face broke into a wide, mischievous kind of smile, and he was right in front of Shanks in a matter of seconds.

"You're pirates?!" The boy's eyes sparkled in joy, and Shanks looked at the boy in shock. After a long silence, Shanks smirked, and then chuckled, relaxing his posture, and his crew followed suit.

"You aren't scared?" Shanks chuckled. "Most pirates would've killed you." He looked more serious as he looked at the boy.

"I'm not gonna die before becoming a pirate!" The boy stuck his tongue out again. Shanks stared at the kid silently.

After another long pause, he decided to temporarily ignore what the kid said. It had piqued his curiosity, but so had many others, only to disappoint him. He sighed.

"Hey, brat, does this town have a bar?"

The boy turned towards him and smiled.

"Yeah, I know just the place!"

"Hey Makino! I brought people!" Luffy burst in the door, and Makino dropped the glass she was holding.

"Luffy?! What are you doing with a group of pirates?!" She yelled across the bar, disregarding the broken glass.

"Everyone in this town is so lively! My crewmates and I just want some drinks, nothing more!" Shanks felt a bead of sweat on his forehead as he felt the woman's gaze bore into him. He really hoped she'd let them get some drinks, they hadn't had any good sake for days.

Makino's shoulders relaxed and though she still looked at them with slight suspicion, she turned towards the bar.

"Alright, what would you like?" The woman said, opening some cabinets. "You're lucky Garp-san just left, he hates pirates."

"Why's he always so mean to me?" Luffy pouted as he struggled to get onto the stool, but eventually maneuvered his way onto one. Shanks took a seat next to the boy, a few unasked questions on his lips.

"Garp-san has good intentions, but he could afford to be a little less strict on you, Luffy. That last training session he gave you left you bed-ridden for a week." Luffy rubbed his arms and shuddered as if remembering something terrifying. Makino sighed, setting down a plate heaping with food in front of the boy.

"Thanks!" Luffy stuck his fork into a piece of meat and chewed.

"Garp? What's Garp doing training some kid?" Shanks asked, half to himself, leaning on his palm.

_Don't tell me…_

"He's my gramps." Luffy said bluntly.

"Your what?!" Shanks almost spat out the sake he'd just been handed. His crew didn't seem to have heard from the tables behind them as they continued on with no reaction. "Then, you're-"

"Monkey D. Luffy"

Shanks' eyes widened for a moment.

_A D?_

_Now that's something new…_

He found himself beginning to wonder more about this kid. There was a long pause as Shanks mulled over what he had been told, as Luffy continued eating. Finally, he spoke.

"So…what's this about training sessions? Why's he doing that?" Shanks looked at the kid with a new sort of interest.

"He wants me to be a Marine."

"Ah. " Shanks says, looking away for a moment. "Why don't you want to be a Marine? You don't have to worry about them tracking you down, and your Grandpa would probably stop bothering you." He braced himself a little.

Luffy made a sour face, scrunching his nose up as if smelling something bad.

"Marines are so boring, "he said. "You have to get places on time, go where they tell you and get up early."

Shanks turned towards the boy and blinked.

"So…what _do_ you want to be?" Shanks asked, but he already knew the answer. Luffy turned towards him and looked him straight in the eye, and said with a fervor Shanks hadn't seen for about ten years-

"_A pirate._"

The world seemed to stand still for a moment, as if the boy had proclaimed something of great importance. He eyed the glint in the boy's eyes- the honest smile, and the unruly black hair, the simple plainness about him that made what he said so much more extraordinary.

"_Why do you want to be a pirate?" _The phrase sat on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't bring himself to ask it. His doubts were in the way, and he said nothing, sipping his sake. It tasted bitter.

Red Haired Shanks never had been the type to like peace and quiet. When he found himself alone on a hill in Fuusha Village, he sat there, staring at the sea, and wondered why he stayed in such a lackluster little town when the whole sea waited for him.

_That kid._

He thought to himself, and seemed oddly contented with the answer. He wanted to tell himself the boy was nothing special. He had thought about leaving later that night, but something compelled him to stay. He knew what it was.

It's because he still hadn't given him an answer, because Shanks hadn't given him the question. Despite the repetitive pattern in all the promising kids he'd seen, he still wanted the answer to that question. He wanted to prove to himself that his Captain was not the last truly great man, not the last Pirate King.

"Oi! Piiiiirattteeee guyyyy!" The boy called out from behind him. Shanks turned begrudgingly, not sure if he wanted to face the kid right now. Luffy was in front of him in a matter of seconds, his face bright.

"I've decided." His smile grew wider. "You're going to have me join your crew!"

"Ehhh?" Shanks looked at the boy, surprised. "Who said I was bringing you anywhere?" He turned away from the boy.

"AWW! C'mon! I want to be a pirate like you!" The boy tugged on his cloak. Shanks rolled his eyes.

"I said no, kid!"

The boy pouted and sat down next to Shanks. He followed the older man's gaze to the coast.

"The sea sure is pretty," the boy said dazedly. "Hey, -"

"Shanks."

"Hey… Shanks, is it true that the sea is endless?" The boy stared intensely at the horizon, as if trying to see the answer for himself. The question caught the man off-guard, but he recovered quickly, staring back at the ocean past the village.

"…It depends on what you do with it." Shanks said off-handedly.

Luffy made a face as if confused, but didn't say anything, still looking fixedly at the water in the distance.

Shanks found himself saying it out of impulse.

"Why do you want to be a pirate?" the words echoed in his head after he said them, and he regretted saying them at all when the boy looked at him confusedly after a long, intense silence.

However, Shanks noticed that it was a stare that said something else-

_What do you mean, why?_

"Pirates get to be free, and go on adventures all the time! If I can't do what I want, there would be no point in being a pirate!" Luffy said, his voice full of the conviction that Shanks had been waiting for. The same conviction Roger had, all those years ago, when he said almost the same words.

It was enough to leave Shanks speechless.

Finally, after what seemed like decades, he began to process what the boy had said, and he smiled.

_Correct._

Red-haired Shanks ran a hand through the hair that gave him his epithet, now vacant of the hat that had sat upon it just hours before; Roger's hat.

Man, he still couldn't believe he'd stayed that long in such a plain village.

For a moment, he missed the familiar weight resting on his head as he patted his hair, but looked back in the opposite direction of where they were sailing. He contemplated the emptiness silently.

_No, _He thought.

_That was definitely the right choice. You would have done the same, isn't that right, Captain?_

He smirked, going back to his crewmates on the main deck, the boy's words rebounding inside his skull, the declaration's pure determination making him believe with utter certainty that the words Luffy had said would become the future.

_I'm going to be the King of the Pirates!_


	2. The New Bounty

On a request I decided to add a short chapter 2, about Shanks seeing Luffy's latest wanted poster. Slight spoilers. Thanks everyone~! :D

The hatless man picked away at the railing beneath him aimlessly as he dangled his feet over the side of his ship.

_Man,_ he thought, _the new world has been frighteningly uneventful these past two years. _

_You know it's because you haven't been told any news about luffy. _

He shook the thoughts out his head before they turned doubtful. He had faith in Luffy, but the boy had been off-the-grid for what was nearing two years, and some were speculating the whole crew was dead, something Shanks knew wasn't true. Luffy wanted to surpass the man's own crew; he would need strong comrades for a feat like that.

Not _just_ strong… but reliable and completely devoted... Shanks knew there was something going on and he waited for some indication of when the boy would rise up.

_When are you coming back...Luffy?_

He heard the screech of a messenger bird overhead, and tilted his head back, following the falling paper with his head as it plopped into his vice-captains hand.

The first mate scanned the first few pages with little interest.

"Anything noteworthy?" The captain turned his upper half towards his first mate.

"..Blackbeard has taken another one of Whitebeard's old islands…" Shanks gritted his teeth and subconsciously brushed the three scars slashed across his eye, earning him a sideways glance from Benn. "Otherwise, just the typical stuff, captain…" He flipped to the next page half-heartedly, only to be surprised when down floated none other than the gleaming smile of Monkey D. Luffy.

"Eh?" Shanks' eyes traveled down to the face, locked on the boy's smile, then traveled downwards on the poster, and he read, half to himself:

"Monkey D. Luffy….bounty…400 million Beri?!" Shanks said in surprise, falling off the railing.

"What's going on, captain?" a few of his passing crew members stopped to stare down at what had caught their captain's eye.

"O-oi!" Yasopp said, picking up the poster. "It's our Luffy! He's made it past the 300 Beri bounty stalemate!"

"The what?" A crewmember with a bandana wrapped around his brown hair leaned over Yasopp's shoulder.

"After a bounty gets to about 300 million, it's practically impossible for you to get it higher, unless you're really crazy, really strong or both…" Yasopp sputtered in surprise. "The kid got up to 400 million!"

"You sound like you didn't expect him to, Yasopp! Where's your faith?" A blonde jeered from next to Shanks.

"Pfft! I believed in the kid since the beginning! I just didn't expect him to reach that landmark so soon…"Yasopp said the second part more quietly, glancing back at his captain. "Despite him failing at Marineford…" Yasopp smirked a little. "You know what this means, captain?"

The red haired man seemed to snap out of his trance and looked up at Yasopp, trying to grasp what the man had asked-

"It means the Marines are afraid of what he's going to become," Benn smiled widely, looking his captain in the eyes. The red haired man processed it all, realized how Luffy's bounty was slowly inching towards his own, though it still had quite a ways to go…

Shanks stood, brushing himself off, and leaned against the railing, his crewmates following his gaze, similar looks on quite a few of their faces: looks of pride.

"It's only matter of time now, Luffy," Shanks smiled wider, gripping the railing.

_When are you coming back...Luffy?_

His earlier question bounced through his mindscape.

_It shouldn't be long now…_


End file.
